The course provides the foundations for situating the design of urban and territorial space within the complex of interdependencies that affect settlements, and for understanding its contribution to socio-ecological relations at different scales.
teacher profile teaching materials
In contrast to Severan's similar and better-known forma urbis, whose intention was to 'outline' the shape of the city of Rome in stone from the architectural elements that made it up, rotturaforma counterpoints the destabilising action of disruption.
That it is the disruption that shapes the urban landscape may sound controversial. And yet, the inhabited territory often looks like a fragment. The disruption, the fracture and what is deformed and hardly recognisable, is the epitome of the urban condition. But here, by disruption, even before the fragment and what breaks the idea of the urban figure, we are referring to the parts of the territory that are 'broken' due to a collapse.
In the urbanised territory, disruption is discontinuity. It is perturbation that, as a-functional to current development, offers eccentric perspectives. It is a heuristic device (Graham, 2011) capable of producing a gap in knowledge as well as in experience. It is a "transformative place" that opens up new possibilities of being and living. It is a space within which a paradigm shift can be inscribed. It is often marginal, and if it is not marginal, it generates marginality. It is urban because it cannot be otherwise. It reveals the complex interplay between local and global relations. Disruption is a lens through which to reinterpret inhabited territory.
The approach of rotturaforma is not 'problem-solving'. On the contrary, the position is learning from what is commonly identified as a 'problem'. Disruption is interpreted as an inversely problematic condition because it reveals the structure but also the contradictions and fragility of the present urban condition. Revealing the often-invisible massive complexes of contemporary urban infrastructure carrying energy, communication, transport, and water, disruption also unmasks the social control of nature operated throughout technology. Abruptly, overflowing water floods us, we protect ourselves from the cold because the heat is off, we resort to fire for light because electricity is cut off, and so on. Disruption accelerates the change which global warming data and forecasts should lead us to during our lives. However disturbing, disruption seems the nearest opportunity to know from the inside what we find generally bound on a technological apparatus that is inscrutable and taken-for-granted. As a window on the circuits that underpin our modern lives and our relationship with nature, disruption is highly political. It moves us into action and to seek a novel correspondence with the world.
The object of rotturaforma are the disruptions of the urban geography. Those disruptions that have to do with infrastructure, including environmental infrastructure such as soil and water. Also included are disruptions resulting from climate change.
The sphere of rotturaforma is NO-CITY (www.no-city.org), that is, the diffuse urban condition. The disruption is ubiquitous and manifests itself in any urban gradient, from the centre, to the periphery, to the dispersion, to hinterland and the fragments of the geography of the Roman urban.
https://www.quodlibet.it/giorgio-agamben-gaia-e-ctonia
Armiero, M. (2021) L’era degli scarti. Cronache dal Wasteocene, la discarica globale. Torino: Einaudi.
Demitry, Francesco (2022) Resistere alla barbarie. Gaia secondo Isabelle Stengers.
https://operavivamagazine.org/resistere-alla-barbarie/
DeSilvey, C. (2022) A Tale of Two Slates: On Collapse and Complicity. In: Grossman, V., Miguel, C., Everyday Matters. Berlin: Ruby Press. pp- 143-155.
Diamond, Jared (2014) Collasso. Torino: Einaudi. pp. 1-11.
Forty, Adrian (2019). Structural failure: accidents waiting to happen. The Architectural Review, 1458, pp. 96-97.
Latour, B., Sunda, M. (2018) The dreamworlds of modernity are in ruins. TOO MUCH, 8, pp. 94-99.
Ghelfi, A. and Papadopoulos D. (2022) Ecological Transition: What It Is and How to Do It. Community Technoscience and Green Democracy. Tecnoscienza, 12 (2). pp. 13-38
Graham, Stephen (2011) Disruptions. In: Gandy, Matthew (ed.) Urban Constellations. Berlin: Jovis. pp. 65-70.
Ingold, Tim (2017) What if the city were an ocean, and its building ships? In: Bradley, Sean V. (Ed.) The Evergreen: A New Season in the North. Edimburg: The World Bank.
Pellizzoni, Luigi (2022) Handle with Care Transition, Translocalism and Experimentalism for a Green Democracy. Tecnoscienza, 12 (2). pp. 39-48.
Sohn-Rethel, A. (2015) [1926] La filosofia del rotto. Buchi Neri. https://buchineri.org/2015/04/14/la-filosofia-del-rotto/
Stengers, Isabelle (2021) Nel tempo delle catastrofi. Resistere alla barbarie a venire. Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier. pp. 66-72.
von Redecker, Eva (2023) ‘Repair and revolution’. Interviewed by Alex Nehmer and Markus Krieger, The Great Repair. A catalog of practices, ARCH+, pp. 198-207
Mutuazione: 21010269 CRITICA DELL'URBANO in Architettura - Progettazione urbana LM-4 R RANZATO MARCO
Programme
rotturaforma is an ambiguous and provocative proposition. rotturaforma is the lens for observing the urban. rotturaforma is the subtitle of the course Critique of the Urban.In contrast to Severan's similar and better-known forma urbis, whose intention was to 'outline' the shape of the city of Rome in stone from the architectural elements that made it up, rotturaforma counterpoints the destabilising action of disruption.
That it is the disruption that shapes the urban landscape may sound controversial. And yet, the inhabited territory often looks like a fragment. The disruption, the fracture and what is deformed and hardly recognisable, is the epitome of the urban condition. But here, by disruption, even before the fragment and what breaks the idea of the urban figure, we are referring to the parts of the territory that are 'broken' due to a collapse.
In the urbanised territory, disruption is discontinuity. It is perturbation that, as a-functional to current development, offers eccentric perspectives. It is a heuristic device (Graham, 2011) capable of producing a gap in knowledge as well as in experience. It is a "transformative place" that opens up new possibilities of being and living. It is a space within which a paradigm shift can be inscribed. It is often marginal, and if it is not marginal, it generates marginality. It is urban because it cannot be otherwise. It reveals the complex interplay between local and global relations. Disruption is a lens through which to reinterpret inhabited territory.
The approach of rotturaforma is not 'problem-solving'. On the contrary, the position is learning from what is commonly identified as a 'problem'. Disruption is interpreted as an inversely problematic condition because it reveals the structure but also the contradictions and fragility of the present urban condition. Revealing the often-invisible massive complexes of contemporary urban infrastructure carrying energy, communication, transport, and water, disruption also unmasks the social control of nature operated throughout technology. Abruptly, overflowing water floods us, we protect ourselves from the cold because the heat is off, we resort to fire for light because electricity is cut off, and so on. Disruption accelerates the change which global warming data and forecasts should lead us to during our lives. However disturbing, disruption seems the nearest opportunity to know from the inside what we find generally bound on a technological apparatus that is inscrutable and taken-for-granted. As a window on the circuits that underpin our modern lives and our relationship with nature, disruption is highly political. It moves us into action and to seek a novel correspondence with the world.
The object of rotturaforma are the disruptions of the urban geography. Those disruptions that have to do with infrastructure, including environmental infrastructure such as soil and water. Also included are disruptions resulting from climate change.
The sphere of rotturaforma is NO-CITY (www.no-city.org), that is, the diffuse urban condition. The disruption is ubiquitous and manifests itself in any urban gradient, from the centre, to the periphery, to the dispersion, to hinterland and the fragments of the geography of the Roman urban.
Core Documentation
Agamben, G. (2020) Gaia e Ctonia. Una Voce. Macerata: Quodlibet.https://www.quodlibet.it/giorgio-agamben-gaia-e-ctonia
Armiero, M. (2021) L’era degli scarti. Cronache dal Wasteocene, la discarica globale. Torino: Einaudi.
Demitry, Francesco (2022) Resistere alla barbarie. Gaia secondo Isabelle Stengers.
https://operavivamagazine.org/resistere-alla-barbarie/
DeSilvey, C. (2022) A Tale of Two Slates: On Collapse and Complicity. In: Grossman, V., Miguel, C., Everyday Matters. Berlin: Ruby Press. pp- 143-155.
Diamond, Jared (2014) Collasso. Torino: Einaudi. pp. 1-11.
Forty, Adrian (2019). Structural failure: accidents waiting to happen. The Architectural Review, 1458, pp. 96-97.
Latour, B., Sunda, M. (2018) The dreamworlds of modernity are in ruins. TOO MUCH, 8, pp. 94-99.
Ghelfi, A. and Papadopoulos D. (2022) Ecological Transition: What It Is and How to Do It. Community Technoscience and Green Democracy. Tecnoscienza, 12 (2). pp. 13-38
Graham, Stephen (2011) Disruptions. In: Gandy, Matthew (ed.) Urban Constellations. Berlin: Jovis. pp. 65-70.
Ingold, Tim (2017) What if the city were an ocean, and its building ships? In: Bradley, Sean V. (Ed.) The Evergreen: A New Season in the North. Edimburg: The World Bank.
Pellizzoni, Luigi (2022) Handle with Care Transition, Translocalism and Experimentalism for a Green Democracy. Tecnoscienza, 12 (2). pp. 39-48.
Sohn-Rethel, A. (2015) [1926] La filosofia del rotto. Buchi Neri. https://buchineri.org/2015/04/14/la-filosofia-del-rotto/
Stengers, Isabelle (2021) Nel tempo delle catastrofi. Resistere alla barbarie a venire. Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier. pp. 66-72.
von Redecker, Eva (2023) ‘Repair and revolution’. Interviewed by Alex Nehmer and Markus Krieger, The Great Repair. A catalog of practices, ARCH+, pp. 198-207
Attendance
The course is held in person with compulsory attendance as per the degree programme regulations and includes some field study.Type of evaluation
Assessment is based on the results of the exercises, as well as active participation in regular seminar activities held in the classroom. During the examination, argumentation skills and the coherence of the exercise products will be considered, bearing in mind the lectures and readings proposed and discussed during the course. The assessment will also take into account the quality of the argument in the individual essay.